Single cell RNA sequencing of aortic CD45+ cells reveals aortic macrophage heterogeneity in mouse atherosclerosis

We have applied single cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) as an unbiased transcriptomics to characterize aortic immune cells in atherosclerosis. The scRNA-seq analysis revealed macrophage heterogeneity at the single-cell level in mouse atherosclerotic aorta. Overall design: Single cell RNA sequencing of aortic CD45+ leukocytes from atherosclerotic Apoe-/- mice (n=6, western diet for 13 weeks). To characterize myeloid cells, we first extracted cell clusters with expression of canonical macrophage (Adgre1, Csf1r, Fcgr1, and Lyz2) or dendritic cell (Zbtb46, Itgax, and Flt3) markers and confidently defined 3,002 myeloid cells.